Guest Blogger Rory Miller!

Anyone who has spent much time training with me has heard me yapping on about the book Meditations on Violence and how you should be reading it.  


The author, Rory Miller, came to Fit and Fearless a few years ago to give a seminar and I, happily, was his contact person.  We've stayed in touch since then and he's always been a huge influence on my training, as well as being an all-around pleasure to talk to.  I'm feeling all mushy now, so I'll shut up & let you get to the good stuff:


Meat

Parker wrote something a while ago, and it inspired me (which Parker often does...)
You can read it here:
http://txkrav.blogspot.ca/2012/03/dont-make-move-nah.html

We are all made of meat.  We forget that.  We live in a world where things don't seem to eat people.  Not being eaten feels normal.  And so we forget that we are made of meat.  And most of the time it is a safe thing to forget.  Maybe even justifiable. But when it becomes important, when the tiger leaps or the knife flashes up, damn.  Because we are made of meat.

We forget that, historically, the meat world is normal.  The safe world, where things don't wait in the dark to eat us, is new. So new it shines.
And we are programmed, designed, evolved to live in the meat world.  Our deepest programming-- fight, flight, freeze; eat when we are hungry, sleep when we are tired-- are all about being meat.  We are wired to deal with a world far more dangerous and violent than this one.  And that's a good thing, because when the safe world slips or shatters and what matters is blood and fear, we're kind of set up for that.  It is natural and if you let yourself be an animal, you have a good chance.  Your ancestors, after all, survived far worse.  You are the product of thousands (or more) generations of success.

But... as much as we are wired to survive in the world where things eat and are eaten, human survival strategy is to get along, to live and work in groups that can protect us by having a mass of people and a range of resources.  Part of getting along is to expect a nice world in order to create and maintain the nice world.  When things go bad, our wiring to survive (and sometimes even our training) comes in direct conflict with our conditioning-- the years and years of being taught to get along.

We interact nicely with the nice world, which allows it to be the nice world.  But the world will never be completely nice or completely safe, because to be the only nasty person in a world of nice people is a superpower.  The person who can operate at the level of meat has an almost insurmountable advantage over the person who can only operate at the level of feelings.

Embrace the nice world.  But do it as a choice.  It is not the only world or the only way to look at the world.  Get to know yourself as an animal.  Learn the world of prey and predator, where things are made of meat.  It _is_ natural.  And if you must go there, go with your whole heart and trust your DNA.

Rory
Montreal Apr 2012